Would Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nonviolence Succeed Today?

Would Martin Luther King Jr. confront today's terrorists with nonviolence?

I was thinking on this day, which would have been the 86th birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., how nonviolence would fare in our violent world.

I mean the serious application of nonviolence in the face of those who demonstrate the capacity to do violence against us and those we love.

When Muslim extremists in Paris slaughter 10 journalists and the two guarding them because they don't like the message they are sending through their cartoons, would we love them?

When hackers alleged to be from North Korea threaten to blow up movie theaters because they object to a movie about killing their leader, would we turn the other cheek.

Should ISIS militants approach, angry over our choice of religion, would we nonviolently bow our head and wait for their conscience to kick in?

Would we love someone if they blew up our church?

Would we walk nonviolently through a crowd of angry people spewing hate?

Yes, today marks King's 86th birthday and when I think about his message and acts of nonviolence in the face of terrorism, it is even more remarkable that he and so many others chose nonviolence in the face of unspeakable acts.

Sometimes I think with the current violence in the world symbolized by al-Qaida and ISIS militants, with machine gun attacks, bombings and beheadings, we forget just how violent many white Americans were toward black Americans who lived under the constant threat of violence from them with no protection from the government and its agencies.

I was reminded of that the week before Christmas when I spoke with 100-year-old Annie Louther of Hamden (see the interview at tmblr.co/ZpcjMo1ahn-O1). Louther, who is black, grew up in Bainbridge, Ga.

The n-word, she said, was a constant presence in her life, along with the hate that came with it. It was a hate that was acted upon with impunity.

She described a white boy taking aim with a slingshot at her 2-year-old sister playing in the yard. He shot her in the eye, putting it out. Nothing was done about it.

"That's nothing. Just a black kid who's hurt, that's all," she said.

She remembered a police officer severely beating a 6-year-old colored boy for fighting with a white 6-year-old. He used either a belt or a switch — she can't quite remember.

Then there was the story of the white man who committed murder and blamed a black man, who was then killed in police custody. When his body was dropped off at the black funeral home, a mob of whites took it and dragged it through the streets of the black neighborhood, scattering body parts along the way. The remains were taken to the steps of the First Baptist Church and set ablaze.

But what struck me most was her description of what happened between the time the white mob snatched the body from the funeral home and burned it at the church.

It was how every member of the black community pulled down their shades and cowered in fear. It was not just these incidents but a litany of incidents throughout their natural born life.

"We were frightened," she said, as she described how the Klan held a parade at night once a year with crosses lit.

As it always has, the terror of the evil transcends races, religions, tribes, groups and borders. We see the white sheets of the Klan and the mentality behind it in ISIS militants who behead those who disagree. We see the Nazis in al-Qaida operatives who kill journalists in Paris for drawing cartoons that insult them. We see it in Boka Haram in Nigeria. And yes, we see it among the mindset of some police officers who so quickly kill black males and are not held accountable for it.

The strategy of nonviolence in a violent world works only if those who are acting violently have some ember of a conscience.

My enduring memories of the past several months include those ISIS beheadings, the Paris shootings, Annie Louther's stories — and those policemen in Ferguson with their sniper rifles aimed at black protesters.